ABSTRACT
Albert Richards Parsons (1848-1887) was a leading labor activist in Chicago who was centrally involved in what came to be known as “The Haymarket Affair” of 1886-one of the salient incidents in U.S. labor history. Descended from veterans of the American Revolution, Parsons himself was born in Alabama (one of nine children), where his father had moved to seek his fortune through opening a shoe and leather factory. After his parents died while he was a small child, he was raised by his older stepbrother living in Texas. He became an apprentice in the printing trade, but when he was thirteen years old he was swept up in the excitement prevalent in Texas with the start of the Civil War and became active in the Confederate cavalry.
